


Rules of the Road

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Takes Care Of Sam, Diary/Journal, Gen, POV Dean Winchester, Pre-Series, Wee!chesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2017797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rules of the road are simple, at their core. You figure out what it takes to survive, and you do that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules of the Road

The rules of the road are simple, at their core. You figure out what it takes to survive, and you do that. 

You never let your little brother out of your sight, never let him go first. Not through a door, not across the street. To sleep is the only exception to that rule -- no sleeping until he's already curled up and dreaming.

You make sure that at least once a week you stop long enough to stretch your legs. You figure out what everyone's jonesing for, and you get it for them. A drink, a new pack of cards, a morning to sleep in, breakfast that didn't come out of a can, a night off. Tempers rise and fall and they need to be managed, shepherded, soothed. You can keep them happy, but you can’t let them catch you doing it.

And when you have no doors to lock, no privacy, no _space_ , you construct walls made of a hundred thousand signals and signs you could never explain, never describe. You build them up and you rearrange them and you let yourself be bricked off once in awhile, caged in, and you don't. fuck with. the walls. When the only space your little brother has on a simmering summer day when the heat is like a fourth body in the car and a fight is brewing in curt syllables and coiled limbs, when the only wall between him and a knock-down drag-out that you really can't take (never can take, really, because he's your little brother and he's going to win, always and forever, and losing one more thing right now is something you just cannot afford), when all there is keeping him sane is a dime-store notebook gone soft and soggy in the heat and a series of ever-cheaper ballpoint pens, their logos mapping your course backwards across the lower forty-eight...when that's all he's got you let him have it and you don't say a damn word about it. You don't rise to the challenge when he stares at you, sullen and starving for something you can't give him, as he turns a page. And you damn well never refer to that dumb notebook as his diary. 

The rules are simple. And if you stick to them, you'll survive. Survive, stick together. Simple.

**Author's Note:**

> Theme = journals/diaries. Prompt: Supernatural, Dean, he never read Sam's diary
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/542613.html?thread=77061013#t77061013)


End file.
